Pam Bondi: Former attorney general testifies before Congress on handling of Epstein case

The country's former attorney general, Pam Bondi, defended her handling of the case Jeffrey Epstein by the Donald Trump administration, amid persistent accusations of a lack of transparency.

Bondi, ousted by the president in April and recovering from cancer, testified before members of a House investigative committee in a closed-door hearing, according to AFP.

Democratic lawmakers, as well as victims of the convicted sex offender, had requested a public hearing.

What did Bondi testify?

In her opening statements, picked up by several media outlets, Bondi defended the work of the Department of Justice during her tenure, but acknowledged "errors in the redaction process" of the released documents, intended primarily to protect the identity of potential victims.

"The bottom line is that fairness and transparency in this case were provided at the request of President Trump and his administration," she said.

The controversy surrounding the release of the Epstein documents has followed Trump since the start of his second term.

A case they use against the president

Last year, the Republican president asked his supporters to move on as the demands for transparency became increasingly insistent.

The Justice Department maintains that it has released all the documents it was legally obligated to make public.

"Enough lies, enough cover-ups. It's time for Pam Bondi to answer our questions," Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, a member of the investigative committee, declared on social media before the hearing.